Category Archives: national news

A Baltimore police officer has resigned following a viral video of him repeatedly punching a man identified as 26-year-old DaShawn McGrier.

According to reports, McGrier was moving to leave after police pulled up to where he was hanging out and he noticed an officer that he had a history with and didn’t want any trouble. McGrier was arrested in June for allegedly assaulting the unnamed officer, and his trial was scheduled for later this month. This time around, it was McGrier who was assaulted.

The officer reportedly asked McGrier for his identification and when he refused, the officer hit McGrier repeatedly and pinned him to the ground. McGrier’s attorney Warren Brown said he sustained a “Fractured jaw, two fractured ribs, he lost feeling in his left leg,” in the incident. He has since regained feeling in his leg.

According to Baltimore Police, McGrier was taken into custody and received medical treatment, and he was released without any charges. The unnamed officer was suspended during an investigation of the incident, and the officer later resigned.

Interim Baltimore Police Commissioner Gary Tuggle released a statement, which read, “While I have an expectation that officers are out of their cars, on foot, and engaging citizens, I expect that it will be done professionally and constitutionally. I have zero tolerance for behavior like I witnessed on the video today. Officers have a responsibility and duty to control their emotions in the most stressful of situations.”

Brown is planning to take action against the officer and the Baltimore Police Department.

Aretha Franklin is “gravely ill,” her family told Detroit’s WDIV-TV on Monday.

WDIV anchor Evrod Cassimy wrote in a tweet: “I spoke with her family members this morning. She is asking for your prayers at this time.”

This follows an earlier report from Roger Friedman’s Showbiz 411, saying that the 76-year-old soul legend is surrounded by “family and people close to her” in Detroit.

In March, Franklin canceled two concerts scheduled in New Jersey. According to a statement from her management team, she was following doctors’ orders to stay off the road and rest completely for two months, and that she was “extremely disappointed she cannot perform as she had expected and hoped to.”

Franklin’s most recent performance was on Nov. 2, 2017, for the Elton John AIDS Foundation in New York and her final public performance was at Philadelphia’s Mann Center in August 2017.

Franklin last performed in her Detroit hometown in June 2017. It was an emotion-packed concert for thousands at an outdoor festival downtown. She ended the performance with a then-cryptic appeal to the hometown crowd: “Please keep me in your prayers.”

Last year, Franklin announced her plans to retire after releasing one final album, saying she would perform at “some select things.”

A biopic starring Jennifer Hudson as Franklin is scheduled to start filming in 2019.

Omarosa Manigault Newman was offered a $15,000-a-month contract from President Trump’s campaign to stay silent after being fired from her job as a White House aide by Chief of Staff John Kelly last December, according to a forthcoming book by Manigault Newman and people familiar with the proposal.

But she refused, according to the incendiary new book, “Unhinged: An Insider Account of Trump’s White House,” which also depicts Trump as unqualified, narcissistic and racist. Excerpts of the book were obtained by the Washington Post.

After she was fired, Manigault Newman wrote, she received a call from Trump campaign advisor Lara Trump, the president’s daughter-in-law, offering her a job and the monthly contract in exchange for her silence.

The proposed nondisclosure agreement allegedly said Manigault Newman could not make any comments about Trump or his family; Vice President Mike Pence or his family; or any comments that could damage the president. It said she would do “diversity outreach,” among other things, for the campaign, according to her account.

“The NDA attached to the email was as harsh and restrictive as any I’d seen in all my years of television,” Manigault Newman writes in the book.

The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment on Friday.

In a statement, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the book “is riddled with lies and false accusations. It’s sad that a disgruntled former White House employee is trying to profit off these false attacks, and even worse that the media would now give her a platform, after not taking her seriously when she had only positive things to say about the President during her time in the administration.”

The allegations threaten to become another political headache for the administration akin to another controversial book earlier this year by journalist Michael Wolff, “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House,” which detailed a wayward White House and prompted broad denunciations from Trump and his aides. The White House had initially planned on trying to avoid commenting on the Manigault Newman’s book to keep it from getting more attention, White House aides said.

Manigault Newman is expected to appear on “Meet the Press” on Sunday morning and will then go on a longer publicity tour. The scheduled appearance comes on the first anniversary of deadly white-supremacist protests in Charlottesville, Va., in which Trump was criticized for saying there were fine people “on both sides.”

Her book is the first insider account from a White House aide that is not largely flattering toward the president. Manigault Newman, who was once the highest-ranking black employee in the White House, calls Trump a “racist, misogynist and bigot.” She alleges in the book that there is a tanning bed in the White House residence and says the president fought with the now-departed chief usher over the installation of the bed; other aides say they have not seen a tanning bed in the White House.

Manigault Newman also writes that Trump told her he was unaware of her firing by Kelly. “No! No one even told me,” she quotes Trump as saying. “I didn’t know that. Damn it.”

Whether the book paints an accurate depiction of Trump’s conduct or amounts primarily to a disgruntled tome from a reality TV star-turned-White House aide is in dispute. Manigault Newman has known Trump for more than a decade and held one of the highest-paid positions in the West Wing for a year, securing the job as an “assistant to the president” after starring as a famed villain in his TV show, “The Apprentice,” and working for the Trump Organization.

Manigault Newman does not offer evidence for some of her most explosive charges but also extensively taped her conversations in the White House, according to people familiar with the tapes, who requested anonymity to describe the recordings. The existence of some tapes was first reported Wednesday by the Daily Beast.

Manigault Newman litters the book with specific quotes from White House aides. She describes many scenes inside the White House vividly — explaining who was in the room and exactly what was said.

She questions Trump’s mental state, describes him as unstable and portrays him as unable to control his impulses, while also describing the extensive lengths that staff members have gone to in attempts to keep him in line.

“All we need to remember is that Trump loves the hate,” she writes in the book. “He thrives on criticism and insults. He delights in chaos and confusion. Taking to Twitter to call him names only fuels him and riles his base. To disarm him, starve his ego; don’t feed into it.”

White House aides have long described Manigault Newman as a problematic employee who tried to stage a wedding photo shoot at the White House, exploded at other West Wing aides and left shoes strewn around the West Wing. For months, they accurately feared that she was taping conversations inside the building. In the eyes of many around Trump, the book is another publicity-grabbing stunt from a reality TV star known for them.

Even as aides warned him against it, Trump often spoke to Manigault Newman and invited her to come by the Oval Office, a practice that Kelly eventually curtailed. She served as Trump’s chief liaison to the African American community and often vouched for him.

The book is a mix of unverified accusations and vivid, quote-filled exchanges from her time with Trump on the campaign trail and in the White House.

In early 2017, Manigault Newman says, she walked Michael Cohen, then Trump’s personal lawyer, into the Oval Office for a meeting with Trump — and saw the president chewing up a piece of paper while Cohen was leaving the office. Another White House official confirmed that Manigault Newman brought Cohen into the White House and was later rebuked for it. The two remain in contact, according to people familiar with the relationship.

“I saw him put a note in his mouth. Since Trump was ever the germaphobe, I was shocked he appeared to be chewing and swallowing the paper. It must have been something very, very sensitive,” she writes in her book.

There is no proof that he chewed on paper, and several White House aides laughed at the assertion and said it was not true.

Manigault Newman also writes in the book that she was contacted in February by the FBI, but does not elaborate on why they called her or what she told them.

She describes in vivid detail her firing, with direct quotes attributed to Kelly and ethics lawyer Stefan Passantino.

According to her account, Kelly comes into the Situation Room and begins by saying, “We’re going to talk to you about leaving the White House.”

“The integrity issues are very serious,” Kelly continues. “If this were the military, this would be a pretty high level of accountability, meaning a court-martial. … If we make this a friendly departure, you can look at your time here in the White House as a year of service to the nation. You can go on without any type of difficulty in the future relative to your reputation.”

Manigault Newman then begins demanding an explanation for why she was being fired and whether Trump knows. Kelly tells her it is non-negotiable and soon leaves the room after mentioning “serious integrity issues.”

“The staff works for me, not the president. So after your departure, I’ll inform him,” Kelly told her, according to the book. “With that, I’ll let you go.”

She is kept in the Situation Room for more than an hour, according to her telling in the book, with her husband waiting outside. She fights with Passantino, who tells her she is being fired for abusing the government car service. She tries to explain why she used the car each time — for official government business, in her telling — to no avail.

“It’s not a fight that is winnable,” Uttam Dhillon, another lawyer, says.

Manigault Newman writes in the book that there was erroneous reporting on her exit — that she did not get into a big fight with Kelly at the White House Christmas party and that she did not try to fight her way past security and get into the residence.

“I never imagined that this ludicrous story — pure gossip — would blow up like it did,” she said.

Passantino did not respond to a request for comment.

Trump tells Manigault Newman that he had no idea she was ousted the day before, according to her account. “I just saw on the news you were thinking about leaving!” Trump says. “What happened?”

Manigault Newman said the call from Trump was followed by a call from Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, and Ivanka Trump, his daughter, who said she “really loves” Manigault Newman and would do anything for her.

“Call us anytime,” Kushner says on the call, according to the book.

Then, Lara Trump called and reiterated how much the president and the family loved Manigault Newman, offering her the job and wanting to make sure “everything is positive.”

“If you come on board, we can’t have you mention that stuff,” she added, referring to interviews Manigault Newman gave immediately after her firing.

This week it was announced that eight black women would appear on the cover of several magazines’ prestigious September and fall issues, apparently marking the first time that this many black women have received the honor in the same year.

Beyoncé, Rihanna, Tracee Ellis Ross, Issa Rae, Tiffany Haddish, Zendaya, Slick Woods, and Princess Nokia each graced the covers of international and local editions of Vogue, Elle, Ebony, Marie Claire, and LadyGunn, to name a few.

The individual September covers each featured a star-studded mix of black female comedians, musicians, and models. Having already graced the cover of Time magazine and Essence, comedian Tiffany Haddish made her first September cover debut with Glamour magazine. Fellow comedic actor and cover-star veteran Tracee Ellis Ross was all smiles on the cover of Elle Canada. Ahead of Insecure’s season three premiere on August 12, Issa Rae appeared on the cover of Ebony magazine’s September issue to discuss producing and writing her hit HBO show.

Beyoncé and Rihanna each graced a Vogue cover of their own: Beyoncé’s highly buzzed-about American Vogue September cover was finally revealed Monday to much acclaim. Not only did her appearance on the cover help make history for black women, but she also added to that by helping pick the first black photographer to ever shoot a cover of American Vogue. Rihanna also made quite the statement on her cover of British Vogue with a bold makeup look that consisted of a thin-lined eyebrow, light smokey eye, and dark glossy lipstick. She was also the first black woman to cover a September issue of British Vogue. Both Beyoncé and Rihanna donned a flower crown for their respective covers, in addition to rapper Princess Nokia, whose floral crown was front and center for her LadyGunn fall cover shoot.

Zendaya and model Slick Woods were the youngest out of the group to appear on September covers. Zendaya stunned on the cover of Marie Claire in a messy beehive hairstyle ahead of her upcoming Drake-produced HBO show, Euphoria. The U.K. edition of Elle tapped a currently pregnant Slick Woods to discuss her success as a Fenty Beauty model.

Despite this major fête, black women are still incredibly underrepresented inside and on the covers of major publications. Several black models have spoken up recently about facing discrimination at castings, making it hard for them to appear in fashion magazines, let alone on the cover of the most important issues of the year. However, following the clear social media success that all eight cover shoots have received, it would appear that there is a great deal of demand for black women on the cover — yet, still not enough opportunity.

While the city has no jurisdiction on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, members of the West Hollywood council unanimously voted to remove Donald Trump’s star. Mayor John Duran explained to CNN that the vote was symbolic.

“The West Hollywood City Council did not pass the resolution because Donald Trump is a conservative or a Republican. Earning a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is an honor. When one belittles and attacks minorities, immigrants, Muslims, people with disabilities or women — the honor no longer exists.”

Hollywood Chamber of Commerce President Leron Gubler, which does have jurisdiction over the star, said there are no plans to remove it as of yet.

This comes after Austin Mikel Clay destroyed Trump’s star with a pickaxe and is now facing a felony count of vandalism.

Police say they will not charge a Florida man for killing another man in a parking lot after an argument over a parking spot. Surveillance video shows Michael Drejka shot and killed Markeis McGlockton after McGlockton pushed him. Florida’s “stand your ground” law allows people to respond with deadly force with they believe lives are in danger. Protesters gathered at the scene yesterday, demanding justice for McGlockton. Meg Oliver reports.

According to reports, Robert Allen was arrested in rural Georgia after members of the U.S. Marshals Southeast Regional Fugitive Task Force closed in on him Wednesday (July 25). The Marshals got word that Allen was staying with his sister in Eastman, Georgia, and when they questioned her about his whereabouts, she cooperated with them.

Allen joins Michael Boatwright and Dedrick Williams as the third suspect in the case. Boatwright was named as one of the gunmen in the case, along with Trayvon Newsome, who is still at large. Williams is accused of driving the getaway car, while Allen’s role in the situation is unknown.